


Comedown, Clarity

by JudeAraya



Series: Fade To Black [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Blowjobs, Infidelity, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mental Illness, handjobs, reconcilliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:56:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up and getting past heartbreak are hard things to do, but in the aftermath of Blaine's infidelity, both boys work towards resolution (both with themselves and with each other).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. October-January

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One follows canon from 4x04-4x13. 
> 
> Chapter Two goes AU from canon, uses spoilers through 4x14. If you don't do spoilers, just read Chapter One and read Chapter Two after Thursday's episode. 
> 
> I want to warn for discussions of infidelity, mental illness, fleeting suicidal ideations. 
> 
> Adam does appear in this story, but only a little :D
> 
> This story is hard. But please remember that I only do happy endings, and the next installment in this verse will be happy. 
> 
> If you haven't read Rending, it might help for one section of this story. 
> 
> Tune in to the end notes for all the people I have to thank for helping me!!

**October**

Sometimes, Blaine does things he doesn’t understand.

When he does them, it always seems like the right thing. Most of the time it’s a decision made in a moment, and then it’s a tidal wave, the cresting of some impulse he can’t help but follow through on.

It’s the comedown that always hurts. The clarity after a moment that seemed like just the right choice -- only it’s so startlingly  _not_.

But it’s never hurt so much as those few seconds after Eli rolled out of bed. By the time Blaine has shrugged into his shirt, his whole body is shaking.

He can’t sleep that night -- that’s not unexpected. Not when his skin crawls and the images of what he let himself do won’t leave him. He pictures Kurt, sweet in love. Ears pinked in cold. Heart split open with him, only with him, the most vulnerable boy  _just_ for Blaine. And it’s all a mess because tied up with all of those images and memories (ones that hurt, a physical ache that curls his body while he chases sobs into his pillow so his parents won’t hear), are these new memories.  

Eli had been different. Had touched him differently. Hadn’t known what Blaine liked. Still, touch was touch and when he’d been in that bed, Eli’s fingers had felt like water. Blaine knew he’d been withering without Kurt. Late into the night, in the lingering after, he realized it wasn’t touch he’d needed. Not that kind.

It was love.

Touch with Kurt  _had_ been love. It had been plenty of other things, but Blaine had never lied to Kurt when he’d said that any way they did it -- fucking or rubbing sweet against each other, lips tattooing tender words into each other’s skin -- it was always making love.

Sex with Eli wasn’t in any way love. And he’d not been expecting love, of course. But he had thought it might make him feel better. Human touch was something he starved for without Kurt. Bereft of it, he felt himself drying up.

It was Kurt’s touch that replenished and filled him up whole.

Blaine isn't shocked that he can't sleep that night. Or the next.

The sleepless nights, still persisting weeks later, do surprise him.  If only because he’s so _tired_. Every day that he rolls out of bed after chasing snatches of too-fleeting sleep, he feels himself fading a little more. The very cells of his corporeal body distancing themselves until he feels like mist, until there’s almost nothing left of him. It’s a surreal place. How long, he wonders, can a person go without sleep until they break down? He feels himself teetering on the edge of something he can’t even name.

He just can’t turn it off. It isn’t even the memories any more, it’s his brain. He’ll lie down and try to relax -- try everything he can think of. Fresh sheets that smell warm, like home. Candles. Clenching and relaxing muscle groups and focusing on a white screen in his mind. He tries yoga and meditation.

But everything feels  _stuck_. Ideas that persist, anxiously jamming everything like grinding gears in his brain. He gets caught in this frantic circle: lingering over a math problem from class, an interaction in glee club that afternoon, the characters of the book he’s trying so hard to read. Between fragments of sleep his brain cycles and cycles beyond his control through the same pattern of thoughts. In this twilight between sleep and not sleep, he is helpless. He can’t rest, not when his brain  _never. turns. off_.

This has happened before; during times when he was particularly anxious or worried. But never like this. Never in an unceasing parade of sleeplessness that goes on and on and on. Kurt had helped too. Had always taken his calls, even late into the night, letting Blaine whisper his worries, letting Blaine ramble about the thesis for an English paper he couldn’t quite nail down or the fight he’d gotten into with his father. Helping him slow things that felt like a barreling train, racing and chugging, going, going, going.

Kurt isn’t here. He isn’t here to soothe Blaine with a cupped palm around his arm. With a bright song they can sing along to in the car. With an open ear, always willing to listen. Then again, that isn’t really new. Kurt hasn’t been there for these things since he went to New York. And that hurt; it certainly hadn’t helped at a time when Blaine was already so ramped up with anxiety and longing. But at least when he still had Kurt, he'd had the hope that Kurt might eventually listen.

Now he has the certainty that he won’t  _ever_ have that. It’s a never again. In the disembodied wake of too little sleep and crushing recrimination, that thought is just one more push closer to an edge.

And then there are days. Days when he can’t help but look back and catalogue his mistakes, all of his mistakes leading up to Eli, even the smallest ones that seemed unimportant long before  _that_ night. Things that always felt right and then turned out to be so stupid or wrong. His behavior and choices never fell impulsive when he makes them. Like the time he’d spent half of his savings from Six Flags on clothes when he knew that money had been earmarked for moving to New York. He’d been at the mall and it was nice, fun. Buying new things for himself, that kind of rush that came from treating himself. Going to see Burt to talk to him about giving Kurt the sex talk. Talking to Sebastian -- letting Sebastian flirt with him until it felt wrong-right, enjoying the attention but hating that he wanted it. He let it happen then promised himself it wasn’t worth the guilt after, picturing how much it would upset Kurt. Flying off to New York to confess, suddenly and in person, to being with someone else. He did these  _things_ and then later sat by himself thinking,  _why did I do that?_

When Finn asks why he cheated on Kurt, Blaine honestly doesn't know.

Night wanes slow toward dawn and he lies awake, twitching into a stranger's body and prickling all over. Everything is wrong, his body and his unceasing thoughts and who he  _is_.

It’s not the first time he thinks,  _I can’t do this_ , but it’s the deepest those words have cut before. The clearest. _I don’t think I can do this anymore_.

Blaine wants to cry, and he wants to shake himself out of skin that no longer fits right. And he wants  _Kurt_. There’s a ghost in the bed with him, and it’s the shadow of Kurt. Sense memory Kurt lays over him, heavy and grounding. Blaine remembers what it felt like, Kurt everywhere, and imagines what it might be like, to ask Kurt to hold him like this. To hold him down and press him into the bed against his own body until there’s nothing left of him that feels like this, until it’s all Kurt and a darkening silence drawing like a curtain over his brain.

Time passes unmarked until his room begins to pink with coming sunlight. He hasn’t slept but somehow has managed to rest for the first time in weeks. It’s not enough, wishing for Kurt, but somehow just enough so that his brain, for once, feels quiet.

It’s hard to imagine moving on. But he is helpless to do anything else, so long as he can hold onto fragments of Kurt in his life.  It’s hard, and it  _hurts_ , but when the light waxes butter yellow, he thinks,  _I can do this_.

~*~

Sometimes Kurt can’t breathe for thinking. He takes the Ambien kindly given by Isabelle, ignores the too soft open stare of pity. It’s kindness meant, he knows. But it’s not what he needs because it cracks through everything he’s desperately shoring up. Their looks -- Rachel and Isabelle; even Chase and the other interns. Their eyes and quiet voices batter him like waves: relentless, hurting and grinding and wearing until he’s left feeling like there’s nothing left. Nothing left but this stunning heart rending, nothing to shore him so that he doesn’t just skim away on this current.

It’s masochistic, he knows, to lay in bed watching The Notebook with lists of paper littering his bed. Reasons to forgive Blaine  _(the hole you tore through me that is life without you)_  and reasons to end their relationship ( _it will never be the same, how can you even sew these jagged edges back together without leaving this ugly seam)_.

He falls asleep when Allie is crying in the rain, Noah’s strong hands hard on her face. His dreams unsettle him; in one his hands warm from the burning heat of Blaine’s skin, bones of his jaw working while his beautiful face crumples. Blaine’s never been a pretty crier, he’s a heartbreaking crier and when he does, it’s always struck Kurt so deep inside. Dream Kurt doesn’t hesitate to kiss Blaine, fevered lips that are already raindewed open and healing because there’s nothing between them so big as the way they love each other, right?

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of a beeping alarm that feels false. Nothing in his world now feels the way it should. He fumbles for his phone to turn it off, tangles his legs in the sheets. His t-shirt is wrapped around him so much that he has to spend a long moment untwisting before he can even get it off to shower.

That offness, that intuition that nothing will be quite in place without Blaine (Kurt is sure that everything has been subtly moved, that even the planet has somehow balanced wrong without him, which is fanciful in a way that might be pathetic, even for him) come back strong and screaming hard through the frangible post-dream cushioning as soon as he takes himself in hand. Kurt’s not quite awake but his body apparently is; showering in the morning has always been the most private time for him, living with a roommate in an apartment with few real walls.

It’s instinct of course, to start without thinking as soon as the water hits his skin.

Instinct until his poor brain catches up, supplying Kurt with the memory of Blaine, honey toned naked and unashamed in Kurt’s bed.

He stops, forehead against the tile wall, erection slowly fading. He’ll never have that again. In the sureness of day, he knows this. It’s always night that makes him wonder, that lets him linger over the sweeter memories that only sting bitter within his stubborn heart that longs longs longs for Blaine helplessly.

Water drums down his back, tile hard grounding against his forehead. Relentless constants.

Even with these constants, he thinks stubbornly, turning to grab his shampoo, nothing feels the same in this new split skin.

**November**

_jan!! FML_

_**???** _

Kurt frowns at Tina’s text, texts back under his desk with a shifted eye to be sure no one can see him.

_in grease kurt. JAN._

Oh damn.  Kurt winces with equal parts sympathy for her and distress for Finn and Artie. Having Tina angry at you can really suck.

 _ **I’m sry!  Who did they give Sandy to?**_   

He won’t think of Blaine, he reminds himself. He’s not thinking about Blaine, wondering if he auditioned. Flushes hot with annoyance when he does think of Blaine, no matter what. Blaine who is obviously a shoe-in for Danny.

Kurt knows it’s petty, and pointless, to be annoyed about things that are long past -- things that he had let go of months ago; the play, Sebastian, every solo that had been given to Blaine while Kurt had sat back and watched. So maybe he’d never really let go, because he feels this all the time now. Upset. Resentful. Petty.

Or maybe he had let it go, only sometimes nowadays he is so  _fucking_ angry at Blaine. Kurt doesn’t mind that part, that much, because being angry hurts a lot less. He hates feeling like a victim, and somehow anger and disdain have always felt a lot more active. There is a familiarity to anger, a sense that he has some sort of control because he is choosing to be angry and not to wallow.

_Marley_

He startles when his phone buzzes in his hands and barely has time to register worry that someone might have heard him when it buzzes again. 

_Blaine got Teen Angel, btw._

His fingers hover over the keypad of his phone, wondering what to text back. What she expects him to say. Fuck Tina and her meddling, Tina who without any solid evidence to show why they  _did_  break up assumes it must be because of distance like with she and Mike.

He reminds himself that she means well, even when the constant texts ( _he looks so sad Kurt, can’t you guys work it out?_ ) are like knives ( _he doesn’t talk to us anymore_ ) and how is he ever supposed to move on when she keeps telling him these things?

How can he hold on to anger when picturing Blaine alone and in pain almost hurts more than his own heartbreak?

Kurt turns his phone off without responding and puts it in the drawer.

~*~

Blaine chases Kurt after the play -- beautiful Kurt who seems even taller, who somehow shines a bit brighter -- it's because he wants to explain. Needs to talk to Kurt about what he’d done. He doesn't know quite what he wants to say, only knows that some instinct is searching desperately for what Kurt had always done for him. Help him to  _feel_ and talk through his messy thoughts until he finds the aching center of his actions.

But Kurt just walks away, parting words shattering through what is left of him. Kurt says this doesn't feel like home anymore, and Blaine knows it isn't Ohio he speaks of. Ohio isn’t and never will be home to either of them. For a short time, Blaine had been Kurt’s home. They had been home to each other. Now Kurt has New York and Blaine is alone.

After their confrontation, he’s not sure how he makes it to his house. How he manages any of it: changing after the play and talking to his cast mates. He’s numb, nothing but numb, right up until he buries himself under a too light comforter and his pillows. Then it comes wrecking through him. After Blaine has exhausted himself with silent sobs, he lays unmoving and doesn’t sleep and berates himself.

Because now he hates himself even more -- not only for hurting Kurt -- but for who he is. It turns out that he’s a cheater, capable of doing the sort of thing he’d never,  _ever_ thought himself capable of. And now, he’s a fundamentally  _selfish_ cheater who somehow expects the person he’s hurt to help him figure out  _why_ he’d done it.

~*~

Kurt cries the whole flight home, hand gripping Rachel’s while they sit in awful silence.

“I know I will eventually, but right now I feel like I’m not sure I ever want to go back.” He sucks in a watery breath, watches the patchwork ground float below them, distorted through the thick plastic window.

“Home?”

“It doesn’t feel like home anymore.”  Rachel’s head digs into his shoulder uncomfortably when she rests it there.

“My house, my dads -- that will always feel like home. But you’re right. New York is home now.”

He closes his eyes. She doesn’t understand and he can’t find a way to explain it to her. It’s not about his father, or even all about Blaine. It’s the realization that he used to be at home in a place that hurt. Where he’d been forced to live in a shell in order to survive. He’d not realized how many changes he’d made when gone, how unfettered he felt in New York until he’d stepped off that plane in Columbus and felt the air constrict around his body like instinct.

Stepping out into the dirty sunlit afternoon at JFK, Kurt feels that mantle he’d picked back up in Ohio falling away. Kurt lets Rachel drag him toward the subway, towing heavy bags behind them because they can’t afford a cab. He feels lighter, looser limbed, terrifyingly thin skinned and  _home_.

~*~

“I always imagined home would be wherever Blaine was.”  Kurt drags a finger over the spiked tines of his fork, untouched food carefully plated before him.

“I felt like that about Finn too Kurt. But now...” Rachel rests her chin on her hand, “I think we weren’t ready for that.”

Kurt doesn’t ask if she’s referring to them or to herself and Finn. She’s right though.

~*~

He breathes easier in bed that night, feels the air moving unrestricted into and out. Filling and nourishing and keeping him alive even when it aches. It aches in ten thousand ways, keeping himself alive with the new realized knowledge that Blaine is no longer a part of that equation, that place he’d dreamt of as home.

Kurt knew coming to New York would be a new start, and he expected to grow up a lot here. He never thought that he’d come out of that chrysalis without Blaine there too.

He’s just Kurt now, no longer  _KurtandBlaine_. Kurt who will still grow, who will try and fight to keep these things from holding him back. Even if that change includes leaving Blaine, and his own beautifully romantic and naive self behind.

Kurt can’t guess what kind of man he’ll be; if he’ll ever feel brave enough to take chances that have the potential to hurt all the more with so much less to guard himself with. He’d opened himself to a world of possibilities when he’d moved to New York on a dream, but had never imagined the toll might be so high. That Blaine would be the cost when Kurt had always imagined he was a part of the plan. But change doesn’t always come with consent; it just happens and sometimes, it really hurts.

Kurt had loved Blaine, but until now, he’s not realized how rooted into him that love was. He’d lived with it as a constant, had trusted without examining it, had expected Blaine to just  _know_ the way that he did. Soulmates were forever, weren’t they? Kurt had trusted that saying the words meant doing the work.

He wakes every day more alone than he ever imagined, feels the places where he’s slowly tearing Blaine out of himself hurting without reprieve. He’s sure old Kurt would find something suitably dramatic to wear into his new world, to  _express_ himself. That he’d wear his heartache like a badge, a sweeping gesture planned into the smallest details that he presented. He would roll out of bed come morning and march out of his door with that pretense of protection layered over him.

Real heartbreak, it turns out, is so disgustingly real. It’s wanting to throw up because you wake with a stomach in knots, it’s pounding headaches from crying and staring for long bewildering minutes into the fridge with no idea why you’re there. It’s mismatched socks and empty blocks of time with no structure because your lover had been the walls that shaped that time. It’s all gone, Blaine is gone and Kurt hasn’t any cold words, any construction to hide behind that can match the hurricane force of loss. He has no desire to expose that loss of promises and his saturating longing.

Such a silly boy, Kurt berates himself, for thinking he could love someone and keep himself from heartbreak with a will and some faith alone. So stupidly young and trusting. He doesn’t trust Blaine anymore and has no idea how to get back to that. No idea how to imagine himself without Blaine despite that, sometime in the future.

Blaine isn’t his home anymore, no matter how much Kurt wants him to be. Maybe old Kurt would have stuck through for a commitment to his belief in soul mates.

“But I’m not that boy anymore.” A promise swallowed in the darkness, Kurt closes his eyes and counts the beat of breaths until he spills over the edge of sleep.

**~*~**

“Um, Mom?”

“Blaine, hi!” Her voice is too shiny bright through the speaker. He grips the phone so tight it hurts a little. “How are you honey?”

He takes a breath.  _Terrible_ , he wants to say.  _I’m dissolving, I think, because I can’t sleep and I don’t know how to inhabit this body without him._

“I’m. I- Mom. I’m having a hard time.”

“Blaine. Sweetheart, I know.” Her voice softens, and he misses her. Misses her so much more than he usually does when she’s gone because he could really use a hug. Someone’s touch. “That happens, breakups are hard.”

The countertop digs insistent into the small of his back when he sways against it, feels the small discomfort more than anything else. Blaine is tired of people treating him like this breakup is normal. Like it’s a teenage rite that he’ll be over soon.

“Mom, it’s not just the breakup,” he admits, letting the fingers of his free hand grasp the counter for support. “It’s  _me_. It’s-” He swallows through an already too dry throat, tangled labyrinth of his feelings rising high. “I think I’ve been  - I mean...since Sadie Hawkins? Or coming out and-and Dad?”

It comes out a question and he has no idea why, but it’s there. He imagines the noise, the words, reverberating, pushing and bumping molecules while sound waves travel from his mouth to her ear.

“Blaine,” Hushed whispers that shock him back into the conversation a little, the bolt of something snapping through his fascia. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

 _Because I couldn’t._  He closes his eyes, wets his lips. Blaine was never really sure why he couldn’t get the words out. It had been offered, when he came home with bruises that made him wince, eyes gritty dry from the tears he’d cried all night. But the words, the words to ask for more, the words that felt like stripping -- no. They were tantamount to exposing everything, each item of clothing and then his skin and under everything else his heart was beating uncertainly because his brain was confused. Unsure how to process his own self like this and what had happened to him and the new world that unsettled everything he’d thought. His brain hadn’t known what to do with that other than to send signals of fear and pain crackling through his body.

How could he expose that? When everything was already too tender, when letting what had happened damage him so deeply he felt helplessly weak? Like he was giving in to the words they’d used. Not when they’d called him a fag, but other ones -- weak, worthless. Disgusting. Nothing. That he was a nothing. That was often the hardest to resist when he was at his worst.

His mother is on the phone right now, and her voice is soft and weaving. He feels too light and thinks,  _oh yes. I have to breathe._

“Blaine can you explain what you mean? I- I’m a little confused about -”

She’s flustered. That’s...unsettling?

“I don’t -- Mom I think that’s the problem. I can’t. I don’t know if I can talk about it, yet.”

“You mean us.”

“I’m sorry Mom -- I’m sorry I know-”

“Blaine it’s okay,” She rushes out.  “That’s understandable.” There is a long pause. “It’s worse now, with what happened with Kurt?”

“I can’t-” He feels it, his chin start to crumple, that hideous thing he does when he cries. Kurt used to run his thumb over is, soothing him and pulling him in. Would tell him he was beautiful and how very much loved he was.  _I’m here_ , he’d say,  _I’ll always be here_.

“Yes.” Blaine barely gets the words out before he’s crying in silent earnest, tears dripping onto the grey polo he’s wearing, tiny splotches wet on his stomach. He’s curled into the pain; it’s almost like he’s trying to protect it, curve around this pulsing and bitter thing. He’s not though, he thinks. He’s just breaking.

Breaking. Such a simple word. His mother speaks, slow soft as if calming a wild thing and he can’t hear more than the melt of vowels and consonants, not the way he’s awkward on the floor where he’s slid, breaking.

~*~

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say right now.” Blaine feels the catch of leather under him when he squirms a bit.

“There isn’t a set of rules,” Sarah smiles at him. She’s wearing great boots; Kurt would approve. “Is there anything in particular worrying you right now?”

He snorts and rolls his eyes before he can think better. There’s a long pause and he winces. “Oh god I’m sorry, that was so rude.” He closes his eyes.  Sarah is laughing a bit.

“Blaine it’s okay.”

“I just,” he thinks carefully, “There’s a lot bothering me. That’s why I’m here.”  _Bothering_. Not the right word. “You know what? It’s not bothering me.”

She’s waiting patiently while he tries to press down the tide of anger. God, where is it even coming from?

“It’s killing me.”

**~*~**

**“** I don’t understand why he did it.” He slurs. He’s drunk. Kurt realizes when the words slide out more wrongly than he’s thought them. Against his resting face his palm is damp warm. It feels wrong and is probably not good for his skin.

“Kurt, maybe you should slow down.” Rachel is not drunk, which is a reverse position from, well...everything. Kurt is the designated driver, the one to wrap you carefully in your coat, the steadfast friend to open doors and shuffle you inside. Kurt’s never drunk.

Only he is, mostly because once he’d started on the bottle of wine Brody had given them, he’d started talking. And doesn’t stop.  

He talks himself through anger -- will later pride himself on the rather inventive names he’s come up with that sum up cheating, heartbreaking, blindsiding  _cheater_. Kurt manages to wind himself up so far that he spills a glass of red wine all over their couch which wouldn’t be all that catastrophic only _it really is_  because now he’s ruined it  _forever_.

Forever turns out to be the fifteen minutes it takes for Rachel to clean the stain out; long enough for him to start pondering the fleeting nature of words like forever, that illusive promise, happiness. That transient time in his life when he’d been foolish enough to think that he had both, managed the luck to find them both shelter wrapped in the beautiful package that was one Blaine Anderson.

“Forever...he said  _forever-_ , he tells Rachel, hiccuping through tears with a wineglass dangling dangerously from his fingertips, “And I’m so stupid I didn’t even see that it was a lie, because he’s a  _liar_.”

It’s a dramatic monologue, sweeping and tragically heartbreaking until it’s not, until it’s sweeping through him in a whole other sort of way. Until it’s rushed through him so hard and fast that he’s not even got the bravado of his own show to bolster him.

And then he’s not crying but sobbing in a way he never has before, from a place he never never never wanted to expose to anyone else; where all of his insecurities and heartbreak and doubt and honesty -- naked and needing honesty -- lie.

~*~

Morning in Bushwick never seems particularly bright, even on the sunny days. There’s always a tinged pallor, a sickly grey brown that lingers in the air and on the buildings. Bright or not though, Kurt realizes, mornings mean some sort of light. And light means a splitting headache when allowed past tear swollen dry eyes.

 _Fuck._  Kurt grits his teeth, which feel like they haven’t been brushed in approximately one hundred years, when he rolls over. Everything hurts. Everything.

He wiggles his toes to check.

Yeah. Everything.

Moving presents a problem; it’s rather a conundrum -- he has to pee desperately, but he’s reasonably afraid that his body might actually shatter if he tried to totter it into a sitting position. The idea of moving makes him want to throw up. Which - oh - definitely not the right line of thought because now he really does have to throw up.

At least he has several things to be thankful for, he realizes, heaving and shuddering on the bathroom floor. His body did not in fact fall apart. The vomit had to have burnt the moss off of his teeth...only shit, no-

“Here.” Rachel sets a glass of water next to him on the floor, brushes his hair back.

“I suck at this hangover thing,” He manages to croak, trying to avoid thoughts about lichen of any sort.  

He vomits again, this time the three sips of water he’d gingerly swallowed.

“I don’t know that there’s any way to be good at it sweetie.”

Her hand on his shoulder is warm and sweet and small. It’s nothing like the touch he wishes would comfort him.

“Rachel, can I-” Considering that he probably ruined her clothes just by sheer proximity to the volume of tears and snot he’d emitted last night, Kurt thinks it might be rude to ask her to leave when she’s only trying to help.

Only he’s not drunk now and vulnerability is not a look Kurt employs often. Right now, smelling of vomit in wrinkled clothes, he can’t fathom the thought of letting anyone close to him.

“I’ll go.” She cuts in carefully, standing and dropping three small pills from her cupped palm onto the counter. “Motrin. Drink plenty of water.” She turns at the door way. “And Kurt, please, _please_ let me know what I can do. I want to help. I’m even willing to make a trip to get you some arancini.”

It’s a sweet gesture, even if the mention of food makes him want to die. He tries to smile, but nothing seems to be working right. Not his face or his churning stomach or his heart which insists that it has to keep beating even when it feels like shards of glass against his ribs, working into his lungs.

~*~

Kurt only throws up once more, after a failed attempt at brushing his teeth that sets off an apparently hair trigger gag reflex. After, he compulsively cleans the bathroom with aching, trembling arms. Crying all over Rachel is one thing, exposing her to his vomit another one entirely.

Thankfully he does manage to make it through in one piece; a shaking weak, chill sweating wreck of a piece with marginally cleaner breath (it had been a battle, but round two of toothbrushing attempt had gone to him. Kurt was a Hummel, a designation that automatically comes with stubborn will and gritty determination).

Kurt makes it to his bed, tucks himself into the pleasure-soft of refuge under the comforter where everything is dark soothing and anonymously safe. Here, there is no one to see him fall apart.

He’d gone to Ohio for  _fucking_  closure. Not to get over Blaine, but for the sweet simplicity of banging the cover of one book shut to open another. Forgiveness and Ending. Choosing one so that he won’t always be trapped in this limbo. This agonizing sway between two decisions that will achingly hurt him no matter what.

The truth is that Kurt can’t grasp the idea that his belief, his bone deep firm knowledge that they were forever, has turned up wrong. He can’t because he’d always  _known_. Only now when he pictures Blaine with some other man, someone faceless whose fingers somehow had to know how to draw pleasure from Blaine’s body, he can’t fathom that same forever without wondering how often he’ll have to live with that picture in his head.

Possession, he’s always thought, is an ugly concept. Condoning the idea of ownership when they both value autonomy so hardily, even when that autonomy was so inextricably linked and committed to oneness together, fits uncomfortably.

He knows now what possessive anger and heartbreak feel like. Like resentment that eats and eats inside him until everything’s degenerated, until he’s nothing but chaos of cells that have no center. Blaine’s heart was his. Blaine’s body and their intimacy, the plans for a future belong to that unit.

Only they don’t. Kurt can’t help but picture and fret and roll in bed awake in an agony of restless wondering. Where did Blaine let him touch? How far did it go? How much did Blaine enjoy that moment, how many of his sweet broken moans were wrung? Did he make that noise, that breathless hitch of broken and helpless pleasure, just before he came?

Kurt cannot contemplate ever wanting to share that sort of moment, that vulnerable honesty, with another person.

Anger was so much easier than this. The worst part is that it hurts just as much to remember the way Blaine had looked when he’d walked away through the hushed emptied halls of McKinley. He’d expected the sadness, the remorse. But he just -- it had caught him off guard to see Blaine so  _small_. Cloaked in a sadness that was concerning to be honest.  Kurt wants to tell himself that Blaine is fine, that there’s nothing to worry about, but honestly he can’t. Under the sad eyes and diminutive, almost beaten down posture, Kurt had felt something else. Something unsettling. They’d always been so tuned into each other’s emotions --

Kurt rolls over. Only they weren’t were they? Hadn’t been. If he had been so connected to Blaine’s feelings, Blaine wouldn’t have done it. He knows that. For weeks he’d told himself that Blaine had no right, no right to turn the blame on him for his actions. _He’d_ chosen to turn to another guy. _He’d_ chosen to break what they had -- trust and intimacy and most importantly, their friendship.

“ _What matters is that I was by myself. I needed you- I needed you and you weren’t there.”_

Hollow clanging, those words have been reverberating in his brain for days now. Kurt wonders now if it was fair to either of them, how much he’d taken on faith. How much work he’d ignored -- work to make sure they were strong and that Blaine felt supported -- in the haze of enjoying his new life.

He’d gone to Ohio to choose, and it hadn’t helped. He’ll not have the answer now, no matter the resentment that he’s not been able to find closure. Hangover pounds steady behind his closed eyes, a simple pain that’s nowhere near the onus of pain that will come. Kurt knows he has to pick, has to find a place to land and start putting himself back together from. Which book, he wonders still, will he keep open, riffling pages, searching and searching for the definition of resolution?

~*~

It isn’t until his third session that Blaine tells her the things that aren’t about Kurt. That aren’t about Sadie Hawkins or his dad.

He talks about how he can’t sleep. The way it feels, coming apart with exhaustion until even his thoughts scare him. He feels betrayed by his own brain.

Blaine tells her the things he thinks at night, when he’s staring sightless in the endless dark. Wondering why he does the things he does, how sometimes he feels helpless to the whims that strike him and unsure in the aftermath. Now that he’s seen it, he can’t stop thinking about it, exhausting himself with recrimination and worry. He’s scared of his own thoughts sometimes, wondering how long he can stay on a roller coaster that never stops.  

She asks him how he feels about seeing a psychiatrist, and if he’s open to medications.

It’s not a question he is expecting.

~*~

“I don’t understand.” He squints at Dr. Lezell. “I was just thinking it was depression or something.”

“Well right now it is. Mood disorders cycle through highs and lows.”

“And he’s low right now.” He darts a nervous look at his mother. Will this change the way she sees him? The way he sees himself?

“Yes. What you’ve described Blaine: times when you feel so good, almost invincible. When you tend to be more impulsive but also driven to creativity and high moments of productivity -- these describe the highs.”

“So I’m...is this like- I mean, like bipolar?”

“Not quite.” She sets her hands flat on the desk. She’s been typing the whole time they’ve talked. He’s never seen anyone type so fast. “People tend to think that there are only three states of mental illness.” He blanches and tries to force breath in. His mother stiffens next to him.

 _“_ Mental illness?” She chokes out.

“I know these are scary words, but it’s not so bad as it sounds.” Dr Lezell assures them.

“I just....this is a lot to take in. I’ve never...I mean, I would never have described it that way, that feels really extreme.” Blaine stutters through the words. His mother takes his hand.

“Well, people carry a lot of preconceptions regarding mental illness. There is a lot of stigma and stereotyping.”

“You were saying something about three states?” His mom presses.

“Yes, well. While a lot of people think that mental illness works in extremes -- you’re either bipolar or depressed or just fine, but it doesn’t work that way. Think about the shades of grey between those two. Mood disorder exists on a spectrum rather than extremes. Cyclothemia describes someone who swings slowly over longer periods of time between depression and what we call hypomania.”

“You mean I’m manic sometimes?”

“Well not quite. Hypomania is characterized by times when you have more energy. You need less sleep, feel outgoing and competitive. You can function just fine in this state: it’s not as disruptive as a full manic episode would be. Lots of people with bipolar disorder experience this state as well, only they also cycle into fully manic periods which present differently and impact function differently.”

“Well, being outgoing and having more energy don’t sound like negative things.”  His mom is frowning.

“Well no, not the hypomanic states. People with cyclothymia are often creative, productive, and outgoing. Most patients really only seek help when they cycle into a depressive state.”

“Like now.” Blaine’s heart is racing. This whole conversation feels like too much.

“Like right now.” She gives him a sympathetic look.

“So the medications you want to put him on?” His mom leads.

“Yes, I think we should start with a low dose of a mood stabilizer -- there are a couple we can try, but I am thinking Lamictal might be a good fit. ”

“It’s not an anti-depressant?” He’s surprised.

“No. With mood disorder, SSRI’s -- what we’d use for someone with a major depressive disorder -- can cause more rapid and extreme cycling which can be dangerous. Lamictal works well for patients who are in a depressive episode, and importantly, it won’t trigger manic or rapid cycling states. It has less reported occurrence of side effects and has worked wonderfully for many of my patients.”

“Okay.”  _Is this really going to help_?

“I know this is scary.” Dr. Lezell assures them, “Especially because I’m not giving you definitive answers. Unfortunately, mental illness isn’t something we can diagnose with certainty. There’s no brain scan that will tell us ‘oh this part of his brain lit up, it’s this for sure’. There’s no blood test that will tell us which chemicals are off balance.”

“I’m not sure if that’s comforting.” His mom states dryly.

“I know it’s not.” She has soft eyes, Blaine thinks. A careful voice. “It’s hard because so many of the medications we use are a sort of mystery to us. A lot of them are primarily used or were intended to work on other things -- epilepsy would be one example. Use for things like depression or bipolar disorder were found as a side effect when reported by patients using them for the primary reason. We don’t always know why they work, but the fact is that they do.”

This is a lot more complicated than the thought it would be, and it’s a lot to digest. He wonders if he should be taking notes.

“Finding the right balance of medications for a diagnosis of mood disorder is an ongoing treatment. It will help us if you keep a sort of diary Blaine. Keep track of your moods. You’ll come to recognize them as they shift, and we’ll be in contact every 2 months to check in and be sure we’re in the right place.”

Blaine can feel the blood draining from his face; there is so much more wrong with him than he ever thought.

“For now,” Dr. Lezell is filling out prescription slips, “I think we’ll start Blaine on Tarazadone to help with the sleep. It’s a good way to start because it doesn’t work the same way as the heavy hitters -- Ambien, Lunesta, that sort of thing. The proper amount of sleep,” She levels a look at Blaine “is crucial. Sleep regenerates our brains, helps stabilize us. If you’re still struggling with sleep or the Trazodone stops working for you, I want you to let me know. We’re just starting you on the Lamictal as well, so I’d like to schedule a follow up in two weeks.”

She reaches over and hands each of them a card.

“Call me at any time if you have concerns or questions. You can always email me as well.”

Blaine blinks back tears. He’s so bewildered, trembling against his mother’s shoulder. Her thumb sweeps, gentle and grounding over his knuckles. He’s not sure the last time she’s touched him like this; it makes him feel younger. Almost protected.

Dr. Lezell stands, riffles through a pile of pamphlets on a bookshelf.

“Here is some literature for you to take home. I know this can be overwhelming, and it’s a lot to digest.” She turns to Blaine, “It’s going to be okay though, and we’re going t help you feel better.”

He nods, stands and untangles his fingers. They feel bloodless and cold.

~*~

In his kitchen later, alone and still cold, Blaine looks. He looks and looks; traces the lines of tiny script. Ponders why they’d think a pink top would be a good look for an orange bottle. Why prescription bottles are orange in the first place. Who needs a neon sign on the bathroom counter reminding them they’re crazy anyway?

 _Not crazy_ , he tries to correct.  _Depressed_. The words of diagnosis repeat in endless loop in his head.  _Cyclothymia_. It doesn’t even sound real, sounds like the name of a comic book character.

It’s best for him, his mother said. It’ll help, Sarah promises. Once they find the right dose and combination of medications, they will help. There are days when he can’t think past the gaping crush of sadness. That maybe it could be easier another way.

He tells himself he’d never do that. Never. But the fact that he thinks like that, even for fleeting moments, terrifies him more than anything.

Help is something he definitely needs right now, even if it comes in the form of a pill that seems to scream about his weakness, that he’s unstable and incapable. But maybe this depression is like the sleep; no matter how hard he’s tried, he can’t will himself to sleep. Well, he has something for that now too.

He can’t keep going the way he has been, he knows. Something has to help. Someone; anything. Maybe this will.

Blaine closes his eyes and tips one pill out and finally,  _finally_ lets himself hope for something better.

**December**

It’s strange the way dreams work. Kurt has never been a particularly vivid dreamer; come mornings he’s mostly retained the shape of feelings, sometimes fleeting images that seep through the periphery. Often it’s the ghost of his mother, the way her fingers dream sweep over his hairline, the faint press of lips to his forehead.

He’s never dreamt like this though, with a crystalline clarity that aches, that rushes through him, hulling him. Splitting every seam he’s stitched in haste and aching and grief.

He dreams about Blaine now, almost every night. Kurt wakes warm as though they’re still in bed, Blaine curled innocent and needing into the shell-shape his body would make behind him. Kurt dreams of his voice, lets the echoes wash through him, the tones and light, that special something that makes Blaine rise above everyone he’s known; Blaine always felt so preciously gifted to him, and the memory of him, singing private in the car or room felt like it was just for Kurt. 

Most often he dreams of Blaine’s skin. Of the way Blaine so often moaned, stretching to touch every place they could, naked and searching for every circuit of completion. Blaine hard between them, Blaine’s lips moaning around his own cock, Blaine coming on him. Kurt coming on him, his pretty lips and his peaking nipples, his hands and his arms and his delicious cock and every part that was  _his_.

And Kurt wakes, hard and desperate with these feelings he’s been stubbornly ignoring for weeks and weeks, giving in only in moments when he feels absolutely frenzy reckless, when his skin is so desperate for release.  

He wakes frantic, animal and horny and near crying but he can’t, he can’t, he  _can’t_.

Because the last time, the last time he really gave in, rolled open in his bed, wet slick hand on slow with deliberation on his own dick, he’d committed to it. Pictured every boy he could; boys that bore no resemblance to Blaine. Boys tall and reed thin. The pretty boy who works concierge at their high rise building at work; Toby. Toby with shocking blonde hair and long, long fingers tapping at his keyboard. Toby with true blue eyes, sky blue unlike his own. Eyes that linger on Kurt with smiles that brighten the corners.

He pictures gorgeous men on sidewalks and the delivery man at work with tantalizing muscled arms.

Sweeps each image like lightning fissions through his electric want body that’s so starved for pleasure touch. Revels in it.

Only he should know better. He should remember  _this_ moment, when he’s taut tight on the edge and the heat sweeps through his arms and legs and washes sense away in the certainty of impending orgasm, he has no control. Kurt can’t stop it then, can’t keep Blaine from flooding him, can’t keep away the singular moment he so dreads remembering. Can’t, can’t,  _can’t not_  and it’s when he remembers Blaine’s lips sweet on his for the last time that he’s hit with an orgasm that hurts.

Kurt doesn’t remember later which started first, pleasure or tears. But he remembers which lingered longest.

The memory of that kiss isn’t bittersweet. It’s not bitter, it’s not sweet, it’s just pain.  Blaine’s fingers through the red belt loops of his pants, his own cupped palms holding Blaine’s jaw steady safe. The way Blaine’s breath against him felt absorbed. Felt like the thing he’d so missed but pushed away.

Kurt has never done well with longing. Longing means wishing for things he can’t have; his mother, a safe place in his life in Lima. Blaine when he’d left for New York. Kurt never did longing, but he always was an expert and boxing up and putting away for later.

He did well with unpacking too, it seemed. Because when Blaine had kissed him, secret quiet in Kurt’s new room, rolling carryon tucked next to what had been saved as his side of the bed, Kurt opened the carefully folded flaps of that box and let himself treasure that longing and how sweet it was to fill it up, to fill and fill his his body and his rabbit beating heart with Blaine.

It was just a kiss. Just a moment between two bodies and hearts that read _I’ve missed you, I love you so much. I wish I could ask you to stay because nothing is the same._

It wasn’t really their last kiss; but it’s the last he wants to remember, one day when it doesn’t hurt. One day when Blaine as his that way might be a sweet memory. One day he just can’t fathom but sometimes prays for if only in the hope that it will lessen this crippling pain. He can’t begin to imagine this thought.

Even when it hurts though, Kurt is determined to remember that one as the last kiss, one given in sharing space with certain love. He’s determined to erase the memory of kisses in his bed in anger later that night.

Those were kisses that left him split, messy crying and naked,  _true_  naked inside and out around where he’s curled too tight. Kurt fights as if he can stop it, break that treasure shape where Blaine had fit so easily. Curls too tight for anyone else to fit because nothing will ever be shaped just for him the way Blaine had been. Puzzle pieces exact for each other in every way.

Only now, not.

So now he will stubbornly not. He won’t classify those as last kisses. He’d rather not have to think of them as lasts, not any. But if he has to put any of them into that box for a later day, he’ll choose the last before everything fell apart.

~*~

Therapy is strange. As hard as Blaine expected, but not in the ways he thought.  Honesty isn’t the problem; he’d gone in knowing there would be no other way. Knowing he’s hit a wall he cannot will himself through. He can’t beat it down with his fists, turn and pretend is not there.  So he went in ready.

Blaine thought he knew what to talk about. With an idea of what was wrong. Only the things he had listed and planned to talk about all turned back. Things external to him -- his parents and Cooper, Sadie Hawkins and Eli, Kurt -- all of it, when brought up somehow turn into a conversation about him.

Sarah assures him that this doesn’t negate these things, these people. But learning to recognize his process, the way he’s internalized, the tools he’s never been given to cope and love and be loved -- this was not what he was expecting.

Blaine thinks of it as unpacking, in a way. He starts where he’s meant to all along for the week. A thought about his parents, a memory that’s been triggered and lingered for a few days. And then he unpacks it for her, lays it out like stacks of folded clothes and finds that there are things left behind. Suitcase left unempty with things strange he has to linger over and figure out.

Sometimes inside feels like an alien planet that he has left to discover.

If it weren’t so fucking hard, it might even be interesting. If he didn’t leave almost every session in or near tears, wrung and unsure. Vulnerable even to himself. Naked with no one to see because _yes_ , he’s still very much alone.

Sam is there; patient and warm, but not the same. Nothing is like Kurt. Kurt who has opened the door for something on Thanksgiving, made way for the possibility of a tethered connection. But it’s still not the same. They text -- about their days, small inane details. Talk occasionally.  But it’s surface streets. Nothing so open that Blaine can say _I had a hard day in therapy.  I need my parents’ love so much I can’t take what they give me and understand it without the crushing hope that it might change._

Blaine tries, hard. Works and works to understand that patience comes slow and waiting hurts. But he can; he can hurt and keep breathing and work to find a way through because it will. He will. He’ll get through and it will be better.

It takes courage and hope and he’s shaking, but he does it. Texts Kurt one day two weeks later.

_I’m having a bad day._

Eyes closed, he breathes and tries not to wait. Leaves his phone on the counter and works at dinner alone in an echo-empty house. Lets himself be surprised by the fast response.

**_What can I do for you?_ **

Blaine knows the tone, it’s sincere and feels like so much more than words.

_That was enough_

He can’t help the honesty. They haven’t had that mature talk, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t practiced with Sarah. Worked on owning his actions and what backed them.  Kurt’s concern was something he hadn’t felt before. So this, this extension feels like so much more.

_If you were here though,_

Blaine bites his lip, wondering if courage is enough to send this text.  If it’s appropriate. Risk isn’t easy, but rewards multiplied might be worth it.

_I’d ask for a hug_

Kurt’s reply is almost instant.

**_If I were there, I already would be_ **

**_~*~_ **

Blaine waits until he’s sure they are both asleep. He can hear the soft snuffles, Burt snoring quietly in Kurt’s bed. Kurt is quiet in Rachel’s. He’d been tossing and turning; Blaine’s been tracking and picturing him. Imagining what it would be like to be there with him. Wishing he could be, to soothe his hands down Kurt’s back and hold him until he quieted.

He’s so close. Kurt is so close to him -- after months of miles and miles between them, his actions and their heartbreak -- Kurt is dizzyingly close. The air around Blaine vibrates, echoes of Kurt’s exhales and the room feels like it expands and contracts with the movements of Kurt’s lungs.

Blaine can’t sleep; no matter how much he wishes it, he won’t. There is too much going on, his head is a busy mess of anxiety -- was he right to come? How must Kurt feel, to know that Blaine knew before him? Will he really be of any help when he goes back to Lima, so far away?

Does Kurt really want him here?

Was it right to back away, to skate away from Kurt when they’d had that moment? When everything had lit up charged and familiar and desperate? When Kurt had so clearly wanted that kiss, that connection?

Blaine wants to give Kurt  _everything_. Anything. But more than that, he wants this to work. And before he can do that, he needs to help himself work, so that when Kurt is ready, he can give himself at his best. Sarah has helped him see so much, enabled him to really work through what he needs and wants. He wants Kurt, but not just for now. Forever.

It won’t work, he knows, the way they were before. He’s so scared of doing the wrong thing, of pushing Kurt away forever when the opportunity was right before him. What if that was it? His only chance?

 _Not about me right now,_  he repeats in his head. Right now, Kurt is so overwhelmed, afraid even when he won’t let himself admit it because if there is anything Blaine knows, it’s that Kurt  _hates_ to be afraid.  Kissing him at that moment wouldn’t have been best for either of them, and Blaine wants to be proud of himself for recognizing that even when he is still so insecure about himself and his choices.

The insecurity hurts. Hurts because he’s worked so hard to believe in his worth without Kurt or anyone else to define him. But right now -- he’s just so happy to be with Kurt, to be close to him. He feels like he could be a part of this; this family he has wished his for so long. It feels so good but he doesn’t want to hurt Kurt with it. It shouldn’t be about Blaine, it isn’t about Blaine, no matter how much he longs for it.

His head is starting to pound and he can feel the anxiety starting to build, cresting waves battering harder and harder with the storm coming. 

So he waits, lies still until he’s sure they’ve fallen asleep. Steals over to his overnight bag and finds his meds by blind sense.  Finds the right one in the faint light from the windows. Tiptoes to the small kitchen. He has to search a bit to find the glasses; despite his gentle precautions the fridge makes a too loud noise, the suck of a seal being broken and he freezes. Nothing moves, not even him, while he searches the quiet for another breach that might signal someone waking.

This is not something he’s ready to share with Kurt. He’s made great strides in therapy, knows that this is best for him but...the thought of Kurt knowing frightens him so much. He’s already damaged himself in Kurt’s eyes, probably irreparably. He’ll never be the same Blaine Kurt fell in love with and he can’t stand the thought of Kurt seeing him now as even a little less.

He swallows his pill quickly, replaces the water filter and tries to close the door, one hand braced against it, without making noise. Blaine is almost to the couch when the curtains around Rachel’s bed twitch.

“Blaine?” Kurt whispers. “Is everything okay?”

He tries to hide the prescription bottle in a fist that’s turned away from Kurt. “Yeah.” He clears his throat and tries again, “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”  He’s so quiet -- it’s not just consideration for Burt; Blaine knows the inflections of Kurt’s voice so well. It’s sadness that tamps him down, the sort of emotion that spreads Kurt thin and honest. There’s nothing of his usual bravado or spunk when he’s like this. He’s just  _Kurt_  and Blaine wants to hold him so badly.

“I was thirsty.” He offers inanely, palms echoing with the ache of not touching. “Do you-” he braves through his scared pounding heart, “Do you want to sit, maybe? Talk?”  _Not be alone,_ he thinks.  _Let me be here like I promised I would be._

It’s so quiet and neither of them moves. Here is hope because Kurt is thinking about it, Blaine can tell. Kurt is only a shadow in the dark apartment but his body is caught in the in between where he’s considering what to do next.

“Thank you.” It’s still quiet, but with a kindness, “But I think maybe I’ll go back to bed. It’s a lot-” he pauses long enough for Blaine to feel his stomach fall and twist, “I think maybe I need to be by myself for a little while longer.”

“Alright.” Blaine tries to get past the lump in his throat, “I’m here.”

 _Here if you need me,_  he doesn’t say because it’s clear.  _Here loving you, always. Here because there’s nowhere else like home except for near you. Because I wish I was still home to you_. He hopes Kurt knows too.

“Thank you Blaine.” The curtains move again, rustling of fabric sweet gentle until he’s gone and everything is hurting once more.

~*~

Kurt lays in bed and tries to count his feelings. It’s a sort of inventory; calculating everything cluttering his brain so that once they are organized, filed and waiting for another time to be examined, he’ll be able to sleep. To breathe properly.

Blaine isn’t sleeping. He doesn’t have to ask to know. And he wants to take Blaine up on his offer. To pull back the heavy, too sweet smelling blankets of Rachel’s bed and ask Blaine to curl up with him. Even when he’s not quite forgiven, even when he’s sure that right now, he can’t go back to what they were. Blaine will always be his best friend and in this moment, Kurt wants nothing more than comfort of Blaine’s body and his smell and steady, abiding love.

It’s not right, though.  Not right now when he knows that the resentment he’s carrying will taint something between them.

Resentment, that’s one.

It’s probably not fair, but it is there. It’s strong and a little overwhelming. How dare his father tell Blaine first? Why can’t he have something, some moment where he’s not hurting?

Kurt appreciates that his father loves Blaine. Blaine deserves -- needs love. Kurt can’t give it to Blaine the way he used to, not now, but he doesn’t want Blaine to ever feel alone. He suspects that Blaine has been terribly alone. Both before and after the incident.

But still. It’s hard for him to grasp his father’s intervention. It feels like his dad is  _siding_ with Blaine. That sits raw in his stomach.  

He thinks over dinner. The shine in Blaine’s eyes, both longing and comfort. The way his shoulders had relaxed into the press of things he’s always wanted. A family that he would fit into easily. His father’s love, because his father has always loved Blaine in a special way even Kurt has never understood. Never wanted to because it was for Blaine and he’s never wanted anything more than to make Blaine feel treasured the way he deserves.

Dinner had been wrong for Kurt in so many ways. The banter, the light in the room his father and Blaine had brought. And Kurt wanted to yell at them, to push everything and breathe because it was so much. They’d put too much on him. How was he supposed to process his father breaking that news  _and_ bringing Blaine and navigate whatever it was between them that they were cultivating now?

Everyone could pretend that this was normal, that they were all moving forward, but no one had asked him. No one sat down and tried to figure out what to give Kurt right then.

So yes, resentment is there, deep and a little ugly. Something to file away.

He’s curious. There is something changed in Blaine. He can’t quite put his finger on it. In so many ways he’s Blaine the way Kurt remembers, steady and loving. Open to receiving love in any form because Blaine has always soaked it up, something that’s always pressed the most tender spots in Kurt’s heart. Giving Blaine his love was always so right.

Kurt knows now, with the clarity of hindsight, that he had been getting it wrong, when he left for New York. It is a lot easier to see now, the ways he took for granted that they were in love. That Blaine had gotten enough love in the last year to hold him through a separation. That Kurt didn’t have to work so hard to keep them steady as he’d thought.

Sometimes, Kurt wants to let himself off the hook.  _Blaine_  cheated.  _Blaine_  broke his heart. He wants to blame Blaine so badly. But maybe truth is more complicated than that. Maybe truth isn’t linear, and he’s starting to understand, can inhabit more than one dimension. That trust and love and taking care of someone can wrap around and twine with anger and loss and betrayal. Maybe he hurt Blaine as much as Blaine hurt him, without wanting to. It doesn’t excuse anything, but lately, it helps Kurt understand that they both carry some weight of the wrongs done.

Weight that doesn’t have to be equal. Weight can mean heartbreak and the dissolution of careful trust just as well as the feeling of abandonment or loss Blaine might have suffered too.

Kurt doesn’t have interest in  _what if’s_ , or _I should have’s_. He can’t change what happened. Lingering on regret and heartbreak is more than enough for him to handle. He can’t go back to trusting Blaine the way he did. He can’t even love Blaine in the same way, even when he knows he’ll love Blaine always. It’s a different shape now, and Kurt’s only beginning to fumble blindly around what that is. Numb fingers and shaking palms that are starting to trace what that shape might be.

He’s finally regaining faith in the knowledge of lasting love for this boy. That’s a comfort and a pang that wraps his heart squeezing tight.

Blaine is different now, and Kurt longs to figure that out, to take that change in his hands and relearn its shape. But he doesn’t know how; Blaine is untouchable in a lot of ways. Most urgently because Kurt isn’t ready to reach out when he’s so scared of how deeply it might break him.

Curiosity is what he has with regret and confusion. But for now, he’ll settle for trying to untangle them to file away separately. Curiosity. Kurt puts that in a folder right in the front, because of all the feelings overwhelming him, it’s almost the safest.

Fear, another. Oh fear, an old specter who comes to haunt. Kurt likes to tell himself that he doesn’t  _do_  fear. He does cold and pulled in. He does reserve and shoring up and clinging to what he’s always called strength. Despite the things he pretends though, the truth is that under everything, Kurt carries fear the closest. Fear that he’ll fail, that he’ll never reach his dreams. He carried the fear that he’d never get out of Lima, never realize his convictions:  _I’m better than these small minded people. I’ll be successful and wanted and incredible and they’ll be stuck in their small lives._

But layered under convictions he’s always told himself are truths has always been fear.

And Kurt is afraid -- afraid of being alone, afraid of losing love which comforts him so.

His father has showed him, given him statistics and pamphlets and assured him that this cancer is just a bump in the road. But he's still scared.

The dark weighs on him, fear stifling and sticking to him. More than anything, it’s the hardest to admit.

_I am afraid._

_~*~_

It’s not the longest conversation, even if Blaine thinks it is mature. As mature as it can be under the circumstances. He’s fully aware of what it much cost Kurt, pulling focus from this emotional roller coaster he’s been put on: acceptance to NYADA, his father’s news, Blaine popping up out of nowhere in light of that news.

A lot to handle, even for the most mature of people. If there’s anything Blaine has learned over the last few months, it’s that they are young enough to still be maturing; nothing will be perfect.

But at least they talk. Blaine is selfish enough to take as much comfort from it as he can.

Which is not to say that it doesn’t hurt. He knows it is coming, the resolution of this conversation. Resolution isn’t the right word though, perhaps.

“I’m sorry Blaine.”

“Sorry for what?” Blaine huffs out a laugh. He knows it’s fake. Knows that Kurt does too, that he’s pretending because he can’t bring himself to expose the bleeding heartbreak. He knows it was stupid to hope. Knew coming in that there was no real reason to hope. But reason doesn’t work just because it should.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want right now.”  Kurt’s eyelashes tremble damp against his skin when he looks down.

“Kurt.” He starts to reach across the table, then pulls his fingers back. He doesn’t know how welcome a touch is that would have been thoughtless second nature before, even when they were just friends. But Kurt does it for him; reaches for his hand anyway. “I don’t want you to worry about giving me what I want right now. I want you to do what is best for you.”

“It’s still hard to hurt you though.”

Blaine shrugs. He wants to prostrate himself for forgiveness. As if laying it out on the table for the millionth time will fix it.  _I hurt you first, I’m awful because I hurt you most. I deserve to be hurt._

Not productive words, he knows. Pulls them in and tries to focus everything he’s learned from himself and with Sarah on this moment.  It takes a lot, to be brave when he’s putting himself out based on the trust that Kurt still loves him.

He has to start somewhere. Trusting Kurt will be something vital for their future.

“We love each other. No one means to or wants to hurt the person they love.”

It’s quiet for a bit after that.

“That’s the problem isn’t it?” Kurt’s fingers trace softly off of his, leaving them longing cold, “You loved me but you hurt me.”

“I  _love_  you.” Blaine swallows hard around the lump in his throat when he corrects him. Kurt’s words are like knives.

“I can’t...I don’t know if I can ever go back Blaine.”

He forces himself to nod. Tries to force an understanding smile onto his face and fails miserably.  Outside the coffee shop window, everything distorts through his tears. Blaine covers his mouth a bit, looks down and away from Kurt to fight through the begging words he wants to say. To swim through the murk to find the  _right_  ones.

“So we’ll go forward.” Blaine manages. Kurt brushes a lone tear away, tilts his head and smiles small way that’s quintessential Kurt at his most vulnerable. It’s a victory, to see Kurt unguarded even in pain with him. It’s a small hope. “Whatever that means.”

**January**

Adam kisses him after their second date. It’s nice.

Well, honestly, it’s better than nice.

Kurt’s always been protective of his personal space; casual touches had always made him uncomfortable unless the giver was someone trusted. Whose intentions he understood.

Being in New York has certainly helped. Everything about him feels freer here. He’s unbinding more and more as months pass and it’s  _incredible_.

Kurt won’t lie and say he’s not hoping for a kiss. That he didn’t lay in bed after his first coffee with Adam and wonder. Wish.

And he does feel a little guilty, almost as if he’s using Adam, because part of that wishing is really longing. Kurt never thought he’d be touch starved, not when touch had been a frightening bog for him to navigate. But with Blaine, he’d never gone without. It was easy and comforting and somehow he’d let himself get used to it. Dependent on it.

He’d gone so long without that sort of touch, longer still than they’d been broken up and sometimes, Kurt aches everywhere for it. Wanting to be touched by Blaine now, most of the time, hurts. Feels so mixed up and twined with anger and heartbreak and desperate need, that thinking about Adam kissing him is like simple balm.

It is. It isn’t as complicated as Kurt thought kissing someone new might be.

Kissing Adam is nice. He wants more, that’s for sure. Later, Kurt can feel himself vibrating against his sheets while he waits for sleep to take him. It’s a feedback loop of dizzying intensity after so long without; the way Adam had pressed into his lips with easy confidence, with his whole body and no self-conscious hesitation. Kurt’s sheets feel too hot and his skin so thin and his heart so heavy pounding.

But it was still a little off. He doesn’t want to let himself know it so he fists his fingers into his pillow and focuses his thoughts on the memory pleasure of his back against the wall next to his door. Of Adam’s almost indiscernible exhale, ghosted against his cheek. Of his own hands, palm open over Adam’s chest.

Time, he scolds himself. His traitor mind that wants to compare. To remember the way Blaine’s lips had the ability to set his whole body on fire. He needs time, and it’s all right if it takes some before new memories will supersede the old. Kissing Adam wasn’t a way to move on, but his enjoyment of it without lingering over Blaine will come with time. With the reality of moving on.

Because that’s what he wants, right? To move on?

~*~

“Sometimes I wonder.” Blaine clenches and unclenches his fingers.

“About?”

“Why nothing seems to be enough?”

Sarah smiles. “You might have to give me a little more to go on Blaine.”

“Yeah,” He laughs, “I mean...I loved performing with the Warblers, but even more, I loved being the frontman. A lot.” He flips a hand.

“What’s wrong with that?” She’s swiveling back and forth in her chair. It’s almost hypnotic, watching her foot move like a metronome. She’s got wonderful boots on again. He wonders if she’s got an endless supply.  “You’re a performer. I’d wonder if you didn’t love it.”

“I just, last year -- with New Directions -- I felt like I always fought for it. If maybe I fought too hard, took too much. They shared a lot more, there wasn’t a frontman. But I liked it so much. Kurt-” Blaine blinks, “He told me one time that he resented it --me. For taking those moments away from him. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You didn’t do it to hurt him.” She states.

“No, I’d never want to hurt him.” Blaine spreads his hands on his knees. Of course not. Except... “I don’t -- I can’t. Only, maybe. With Eli.” His eyes sting, the words make his chest ache. “I never thought I’d want to hurt him, I  _wouldn’t_  hurt him on purpose. It wasn’t about that, I was just -- I was so mad. I was sure he was moving on without me, and he had promised he never would. I was so stupid.” He whispers.

“You were hurting too, weren’t you?”

“But it doesn’t matter,” he insists, “It was wrong. But... for a second, I liked it. I liked that he was interested in me. It felt good, to have someone -- anyone -- pay attention to me like that. What is wrong with me?”

“Blaine, there’s nothing  _wrong_  with you.”

“No but there is,” He’s raising his voice, words thick through his tears, “There is. It was like that with Sebastian too and there wasn’t even anything wrong between Kurt and I then. It just.” He looks down, reaches blindly for the tissues on a table next to him. “I liked it. It felt so good, when he flirted with me. And it wasn’t that I was interested.”

“Blaine?” She prompts when the silence lingers.

“Maybe...maybe I need to be more honest with myself. Because I  _was_ interested. Sebastian was handsome, and flattering. I liked that he came after me. But I felt so guilty, so guilty right away that I pretended I’d never thought of it. I love Kurt.” he insists.

“I know.” She’s so gentle with him sometimes.

“I always wanted that from Kurt -- to feel...god this is so silly, but...I wanted to feel wooed. And it’s like...he did do it, but I always expected more and I didn’t tell him and sometimes it felt...I don’t know. I resented Kurt sometimes because he wanted it too, and when I didn’t give it to him he went out and found  _Chandler_.”

“Went out and found him?”

“Okay, well maybe not intentionally. But he liked it too. And when he told me -- when he said that I never complimented him and that he felt like I took all the attention away -- it made me so mad. I already had to take the lead with-” He stuttered to a start. He wasn’t really ready to talk about his sex life in detail quite yet. Maybe not ever. “With um, you know.  _Stuff_. When was it  _my_ turn to get the attention?”

Blaine stops, heart frozen for a minute before his whole body pulses flushed.

“Oh my god,” He closes his eyes, “I just heard what I said. What is wrong with me? Why do I like it --  _want_ it -- so much?

“I don’t know Blaine. Why do you think you like it?”

He ignores her question, barrels on through the barrage of insight and tumbling throughs, “You know, I don’t know that Kurt and I ever really understood this. Or maybe we just...maybe it was all mixed up. He loves romance. Loves the gestures and the idea. But-”

“But you like it too?”

“Maybe not the romance so much. But I loved it when he would do things; bring me flowers, ask me on dates. I loved knowing, at first, that he wanted me. Even when I wasn’t ready to be more than friends.”

“Is that something you never talked about?”

“No.” He’s twists the tissue hopelessly. Grabs another to wipe his face with. “I guess we should have, only I wasn’t really thinking about it. I- I was so scared, of him leaving and forgetting about me. When we fought, I didn’t really hear what he was saying. I was so mad. I’d followed him to McKinley, wasn’t that enough?”

Sarah waits.

“It wasn’t then, though. I thought that making that gesture it would say so much. Maybe because it would have for me? But...when we talked, with Miss Pillsbury, and then after, it wasn’t about what it should have been.”

“Should is always dangerous territory Blaine. You were negotiating with the skills you had.”

“We never talked about the things that were there, under it. He wanted more from me; he felt ignored. And I-” He’s biting his lip nervously, again. “I guess I was angry. Resented him? I’d switched to McKinley and even though I told myself when I did it it was the right thing to do, it wasn’t. It didn’t feel right after. Glee wasn’t the same as being with the Warblers. I was there for Kurt and I never felt like I fit in right. And I thought, why isn’t it enough? Then the whole thing happened with Chandler, and before that, Sebastian-”

“You said before that you didn’t discourage Sebastian even though it was hurting Kurt. Is that what you are talking about?” She clarifies.

“Yeah. It’s like nothing was ever enough.”

“For you or for him?”

“At the time, I told myself for him.”

“Do you see it differently now?”

“Well yeah. I should-” he corrects himself quickly, “I didn’t let myself see why I was upset, and I think it was unfair to Kurt, to be mad at him for it when I made the choice. And to expect that it was enough when I always...craved? Craved more. That’s what Sebastian was, I guess.”

“You know Blaine...I don’t want you to think I’m condescending to you when I say that you’re young. But you are. These things are skills we are all learning. Negotiating what we want and who we are...they take time. You guys  _are_  young.  You’re here now, and you are learning so much. I’m proud of you. For being brave enough to be honest and willing to look at yourself so candidly.”

Blaine shakes his head, feels her works sink like stones, heavy and nauseating in his stomach.  _What’s to be proud of_ , he thinks viciously.  _When I was dumb enough to hurt the person I love most in the world._

“What’s the point?” He sniffles, blows his nose self-consciously. “To figure this stuff out when it’s already too late?” Blaine thinks of Christmas, of Kurt’s decision.  _Friends_. Never again lovers.

“Everyone makes mistakes Blaine,” She leans forward gently, “You’re here to learn from them.”

He nods.

“I hope that while you’re here, you’ll find a way to forgive yourself too.”

Blaine doesn’t answer, just looks down at his lap and then out the window where the sun is too bright. Bird are lighting on the tree branches, settling on the dead grass. Just a few, and then more, and then a shocking flock that covers everything, more birds than he’s ever seen before. Starlings resting on rooftops and power lines and then suddenly, with the blink of an eye, are gone in a waving mass that disappears from the sky. He closes his eyes, wishes it could be like that -- the smothering blanket of so many fears and transgressions flocking to the sky, leaving him bare and free.

 


	2. Febuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, small bits of Adam. All of this is grounded in spoilers and spec. The first bit has already been jossed darnit! 
> 
> Be warned, herein be the sexy times.

**Febuary**

“You’re coming?”

Kurt smiles into the quiet surprise. “Of course I am. I promised I would.”

There is a humming silence where Blaine could say,  _you promised Thanksgiving. You promised Christmas._

He barrels on. Time is starting to give him a sway toward lenient understandings. Sometimes, promises can’t be kept. But forward movement can.

“Will you be my date?” Kurt closes his eyes. Date can mean so many things, and he’s not even sure what it means to him right now. Mostly that he’s pictured them together at Mr. Schue’s wedding since the start, and can’t talk himself out of it.  “As friends you know.” He tacks on.

“Of-” Blaine clears his throat, “Of course. Friends.” They ignore the swallow of Blaine’s sadness. “I’ll have to tell Tina, I’d asked her. But I know she’ll understand.”

“Tina always does.” He smiles; wonders if he’ll wear a bowtie or not.

~*~

“I asked Blaine to be my date at the wedding.” Kurt rushes out.  There’s a long silence in which Adam studies him closely.

“Well, that’s good then.”  He continues to shred the cardboard sleeve from his coffee cup.

“It is?”

“You haven’t decided Kurt. You know that.” Adam’s smile is so sincere. Kurt wonders how it is that he’s so nice all the time. It’s never exhausting to be around him -- it’s a comfort quite often, but Kurt is never sure if that comfort will melt into boredom one day.

“What haven’t I decided?”

“If you’ll take him back.”

“But I- I mean,” Kurt tries to think clearly. Through longing that’s never abated, that he’s agonized over carrying. “I don’t know if I can forgive him. And I  _like_  you.”

“Well,” Adam nudges his foot playfully, “I l like you too. There’s no rule that says you have to decide now. I’ll just keep on liking you, and your humor and charm. Your lips,” Kurt flushes when Adam drops his gaze to them steadily, “I like it all. Quite a lot. Enough that I want you to be happy no matter what. Take your time figuring out what’s best for you.”

Kurt’s eyeroll is playful, even when he scoots his foot away from the danger zone of more under the table shenanigans.

“How are you so great?”

“Just as I was made I guess.” Adam smiles at him cheekily.

**~*~**

“I don’t think we’ve ever danced like this.” So close to Blaine’s ear, Kurt can feel the feedback warmth of his own breath.

“What do you mean?”

“Close like this, in public.” Kurt’s fingers starfish carefully, pulling Blaine a little closer with the pressure of his hand at the small of his back. Blaine’s body is hot under his fingers, still flushed from the rush of singing.

“You’re right.”  Blaine’s forehead has tipped carefully into the hollowed space of Kurt’s neck; Kurt feels a prickling rush swooping in his stomach, giddy exhilaration and nothing feels real, quite. He searches the smattering of couples on the dance floor, the half empty tables that signal a party winding down. His fingers are tingling, body thrum-aware of Blaine’s. He can’t think like this, not anything past  _pleasewant_ and  _soclose_.

For the first time in months he has started to feel that home-sense; it’s been washing through him since he’d impulsively kissed Blaine in the car and has steadily increased until it’s a torrent he doesn’t think he can swim above right now. It might be best, he knows, to walk away now. It would be the most sensible thing to do, the safest for them both. But sensible isn’t in the building -- it never even entered. Kurt thinks me might have left sensible somewhere between New York and Blaine’s lips.

“Stay here, with me.” Kurt pleads.

“Here?” Blaine doesn’t move; Kurt can feel the stillness of hope uncertain.

“Please.” His thumb digs in a little, feels the damp stick of Blaine’s shirt. Feels the way his muscles move.

“Okay.” Sudden chill crawls along his neck where Blaine’s forehead no longer rests. His eyes are wide-honey. Too much. Too much because connecting feels so desperately needed but he can’t help the fear that lingers. Kurt closes his eyes and runs his fingers down to thread with Blaine’s.

Blaine laughs a little, following where Kurt is pulling him past tables, “Don’t you want to say goodbye?”

“We’ll see them tomorrow.” There is a reckless knot inside, a surge that’s anxiety and rush. He can’t think,  _won’t t_ hink about it now. Now is Blaine. Now is wanting his lips again, the exaltation of relief in the car when their mouths had met with hearts pounding.

It’s not until they are almost there, keycard in his pocket and a long hallway in front of them, that Kurt starts to feel that anxiety unfold into something like uncertainty.  He takes a deep breath, slides hands from his pockets and turns to smile at Blaine.

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Blaine’s smile trembles; there is no one here to see Kurt press it away with a steady thumb, the way he follows it with a stirring kiss. Kurt pulls away suddenly; smiles when Blaine sways into the movement, lips still searching connection.

“Come on.” It’s soft entreaty. He leads them into a room that’s cool and spare despite luxury.  Kurt doesn’t want time to think so he crowds Blaine as soon as the too loud click of a door closing sounds. Crowds him against the door, body into Blaine’s, impatient hands rough skimming under a suit jacket to round the hard the edges of his ribcage.

“Kurt,” Blaine draws his lips away, succulent damp lips too pink in the low lighting. Kurt chases them, doesn’t miss the uncertainty in Blaine’s eyes, the furrowed insecurity that tips him past urgency into a longing to fix and that just won’t work.

Too many months of longing; he’s had too many and all for this boy -- he can’t chance feeling more. Not when urgency is so eager to fill him up, to set everything alight.

He’ll always love Blaine, but right now, he’s not sure he can love Blaine  _and_ want Blaine without breaking. So Kurt keeps moving, nipping and sucking down Blaine’s salt sweet skin, fingers pulling his tie loose and already working buttons open.

“Please, please.” Kurt nudges a thigh between Blaine’s, helplessly boring against his already hard cock. “I have to, Blaine, please let me have you.” He closes his eyes, hands tucking under the hem of Blaine’s undershirt which is half pulled out of his pants. Blaine is all restless movement; uncoordinated helpless hips surging against Kurt’s steady thigh. He makes a small sound, the tenderest of exhalations that means  _yes_ , that Kurt knows means  _yesyesyes_ when it’s coming from Blaine.

“I will. You can.” Blaine promises; Kurt lets himself be pulled into a messy kiss, lets Blaine cup hands around his face to direct him. He pushes Blaine’s jacket down, overwhelmed hands almost forceful with the sway of lust that just  _needs_. He pulls his own off, dropping it carelessly on the floor with Blaine’s.

“Come on.” Kurt pulls away, turns Blaine to nudge him toward the bed. He can’t breathe, he feels like he can’t breathe and Blaine’s steady eyes on his still feel like too much, sweep through him hurting close. Looking would mean seeing, or even stopping. Stopping to get off of this barreling push, this compelling need to be closer to the thing he’s wanted most in the world -- Blaine in his arms -- but which has the capacity to hurt him past bearing. Kurt doesn’t want to stop, to think. Doesn’t want to see reason or make the right choice on paper.

The right choice on paper had sounded like New York and blindly trusting a long distance relationship.

That had, obviously, not worked out that well.

Kurt guides them until Blaine is on the bed, scooting up toward the pillows, arms already out for Kurt. But he pauses; Blaine’s body is so beautiful, tantalizing: the peek of stomach where Kurt’s pulled Blaine’s shirt up, thighs strong and lean against his pants. His ochre bright eyes that pull his helpless heart and body in.

“Bedspread,” Kurt nods toward the bed, then works his own bowtie free, tugging the buttons of his shirt and watching Blaine shift to kick the duvet down so that it bunches carelessly toward the bottom. He reaches to strip off his undershirt.

“No, no,” Kurt crawls over Blaine then, stopping the motion of his hands. The open edges of his dress shirt frame Blaine’s body. “Let me, please.”  Kurt’s rapid flutters kisses along his lush mouth before shifting down to bite soft the exposed skin of Blaine’s belly. It’s rounder than he remembers; despite how pulled taut he is, the development of further toning, Blaine’s stomach curves soft and tempting.

“I-” Blaine’s hands flit up to cover it self-consciously.

“Don’t.” Kurt inhales, inhales and takes, takes, takes it in. Ignores tears stubborn in the corners of his eyes because  _oh_ , he missed this so much. Missed Blaine so much. It’s a sweet sting deluge he never wants to stop. “You’re beautiful~*~

Blaine closes his eyes then, lets his fingers work carefully through Kurt’s hair. Worries over Kurt’s frenzy that emanates a tinge of pain. He understands that, but…

He works not to tug Kurt up, to ask for slow, for careful.  Kurt needs too, needs and Blaine wants to give anything he has right now. “Kurt,” he broken whispers, head pressing back into the pillow.  Kurt’s exhalation is like worship against his skin and Blaine shudders when Kurt’s thumbs smooth over his nipples. He bites into Blaine’s mouth, lays his mostly clothed body over Blaine. And it’s so sudden; everything tensing Blaine’s body leaves, everything but deep bone comfort seeps out.  Letting Kurt take right now feels like a gift to them both.

“Kurt,” He traces Kurt’s cheekbone with unsteady fingers, hopes to look into his eyes, to find that connection. But Kurt turns his face into the touch, eyes closed but damp with tears. He’s shaking, shaking and still moving slowly over him, the friction of their bodies triggering a sort of tender abandon. He pushes Kurt’s shirt down his arms, lets Kurt move to untangle it and pull his own undershirt off. Kurt attacks Blaine’s belt and pants, lips and tongue steady on his hips and the v leading down along his pelvis and Blaine has his eyes closed now, fists tight when he lifts and moves while Kurt strips him, laves Blaine’s skin as he goes; his cock and the crease of his thigh, the inside of his knee and the top of an ankle.

“Kurt, you too,” Blaine tries to sit up, hands reaching, lays back down with a sort of thump when Kurt’s hand, blistering hot, bears down against him.

“I will, I promise.” Kurt nudges his thighs open – it’s been so long, so long since he’s felt like this, felt so open and unashamed. He spreads his legs easily; his body knows this way like instinct, knows his body with Kurt’s body. His balls draw up when Kurt sucks one into his blazing mouth, when the drag of Kurt’s nose and lips up his length pulses through him.

“Oh,” Faint voiced, Blaine scrunches his eyes, helpless to stop the way he moves, hips tilting toward Kurt. When Kurt’s arms wind around, face tucked against his stomach, he shudders a breath in and tries not to cry. Tries not to let his heart beat out, needing and so grounded by Kurt’s hug. “Kurt- I love you so much.” It’s uncomfortable in a way, the insides of Kurt’s elbows dig into Blaine’s side, and he has to arch his back to accommodate the hold. He could care less. Will sway into Kurt’s touch always.

“Blaine,” It’s broken, Kurt’s voice, “I love you too.” He shimmies up to kiss Blaine again; they linger like twilight does, soft lips steady in the hallowed space cradled by the words. Kurt pulls away to lay his forehead on Blaine’s.  He kisses Blaine’s nose lightly, then rolls to his side, shucking his own pants.

He’s so beautiful, so stunning with stark skin against the bed covers; his skin is like home under Blain’s palm. Chest to hip Blaine strokes, then skims down to touch him where he’s so hard, red flushed. Kurt is breathing so  _fast_ , hands so strong against his shoulders. He’s thinner than Blaine remembers.

“Roll over,” Kurt asks, trembling harder.

Unsure, Blaine does, then lets himself rest when Kurt begins to kiss again, it’s adulation Blaine knows. It’s familiar but almost new. Kurt hitches Blaine closer by the hips, almost manhandling in his haste to get him how he wants, then pushes his leg between Blaine’s to open them again. Head turned to the side, Blaine can see the long flex of Kurt’s forearm planted next to his shoulders for leverage. Kurt’s lines his cock against the cleft of his ass, hard and seeking. It’s dry friction, not quite enough for either of them.

“Hold on,” Kurt breaks away, leaves Blaine gasping and rocking in small, desperate increments against the bed. His skin prickles from the shocking cold where Kurt’s body no longer covers it. “I need-“

Blaine watches, still stomach down and waiting, when Kurt slips into the bathroom.  Although he longs, body aching for Kurt’s again, aching to be fucked blindly into the mattress, he could be happy just like this, watching Kurt unadorned with anything but his striking beauty.

“Is this okay?” Kurt holds out a small sample of conditioner gifted for hotel guests. He also has a small bottle of lotion too.

“Of course,” Blaine props up on his elbows, the triangle of his arms ending in together twisted fingers. He starts to roll back over until Kurt touches his shoulder, sitting on the bed next to him.

“Is it alright if we- like we were?” Blaine hesitates. Wants to be able to see Kurt, to open his eyes and watch the way Kurt’s change color when he gives in to it, hard and fast and so sweet hot. “I-“ Kurt ducks his head, fallen strands of hair Blaine has threaded through over his forehead, “I just, I’ve missed the way it feels, holding you like that. It feels like -- like I’m protecting you.”

It does, Blaine knows. He always felt like something treasured when he was shelled in Kurt’s arms. He wonders though, who’s been protecting Kurt. If Kurt will let Blaine do it too, if Kurt still wants him like that.

“Please,” Kurt bites his lip, eyes finally searching Blaine’s.

“Yes,” Blaine settles back, rolling onto his side to let Kurt’s body slip against his. “Of course.”

It’s cold, a little, when Kurt’s covers him with the lotion, hand sure-gripping Blaine’s erection. It doesn’t make a difference; Blaine still groans and groans against the touch. Kurt’s hand is gone for a moment until Blaine feels his dick sliding up the cleft of his buttocks, lubed now too. Kurt’s hand is wet when it grips him, voice almost too quiet when he breathes out a moan with Blaine’s.  Kurt pushes harder, unsteady and unpracticed movements and Blaine tries to roll back into him; it’s sweet agony, the way just Kurt’s body against his ignites everything until he hurts from holding himself so tense and close. He braces a foot against the mattress for more leverage, trying not to slip away because it’s kind of an awkward position but honestly, if it’s not about Kurt right now, he could care less.

“Oh-“ Kurt exclaims when Blaine reaches back to guide him, sliding easily in the space Blaine’s shifting body has made, dick pushing through the gap between his thighs. Blaine fumbles for the conditioner, tiny bottle hard to manage with shaking hands. He tips his head a little, grinding the back of his skull against the flex and ebb of Kurt’s shoulder. Spreads his thighs a little to coat them and ease the way that Kurt glides between them. Blaine squeezes his legs around him; god Kurt is so  _hot_ , and it’s strange, feeling his dick like this, stripped of the usual sort of stimuli he associates with sex. For the first few strokes he lets his fingers linger, lets them cup and slide and be fucked by Kurt who is pumping hard, in and out.

But then Kurt moves, hitches down a little and adjusts and Blaine’s cry is too loud, “Oh god,  _oh shit._ ” Kurt’s dick is suddenly torturous pleasure where it slides against and under his balls, wet and sloppy. Blaine reaches out blind, tries to grab any part of Kurt he can, tries to close his thighs as tight as he can, just a little more. “Please Kurt, do it, come on.”

He pulls and pulls Kurt closer, the hot hard of Kurt fucking between his legs so, so much. “Please, just fuck me, want you to come all over me,” Kurt groans low, sucks a dark kiss at the cusp of Blaine’s shoulder blade. Blaine’s nails dig into the flesh of Kurt’s ass and under his pinching grip he can feel it all; the clench and release and roll of Kurt’s body at work, working him. He digs his nails in a little harder, soaks in the high  _ah-ah-ah_ of surprise, wrests a groan he wasn’t expecting from his own mouth.

“Oh,  _fuck_.” Winded, Kurt’s moan stutters out, high and barely there. He bites down, finds purchase against Blaine, unsteady when he grabs his dick again.  Blaine so close, so close and that is what he wants, to feel like this, to feel so connected it’s like they’re only whole together. Blaine lets go of Kurt’s flexing hip, lets him undulate hard against and through him.  His fingers, tacky and cold from now dried conditioner, twine with Kurt’s. But he doesn’t want, can’t have this end, so he pulls Kurt’s hand off, tugs roughly until it’s wrapped strong around his waist, their hands gripping so hard his fingers hurt.

“Oh,  _oh_ ,” Kurt whispers, broken soft against his back. Blaine can hear the start of tears that trigger his own and they are both crying and moving and fucking together.  He clenches his thighs and his fingers until his whole body is arching into the now pounding of Kurt hips against his ass.  Kurt comes, throbbing in a way that Blaine can feel it with a sort of wonder, throbbing that ebbs and slows while he pumps through the slick of his own come a few more times, ragged and spent. Blaine bites his lip and the tears are faster, his breath hitching because it’s over now and he doesn’t want any of this to be.

“Blaine,” Kurt is stilling, still now but insistent when he pulls his hand free, wraps it so sure around Blaine and kisses his neck soft and tender, his touch like offering and steadies him, sures him into orgasm and stays there, stays when Blaine bows helplessly into the wash of pleasure.

**~*~**

It’s calming by increments, after that. Calming breaths that slow from shuddering heaves to something...less. Kurt tucks his face between Blaine’s shoulders, breathes in the clean sweat smell of him and tries not to think. Tries and tries. Counts the thunder pounding of Blaine’s heartbeats.  Soon, when things have quieted; the roar in his ears and his own throbbing heart, he hears the undertone that means tears, the quiet thread in Blaine’s breathing that somehow matches what’s torn loose in his own.

“We’ve made quite the mess of you.” He teases softly, injecting fake smile into this voice.

“Yeah.” Blaine moves away; the separation gooseprickles Kurt’s skin. Blaine doesn’t look at him when he rolls off the bed and toward the bathroom and Kurt knows that this it might be what he  _needs_  but it’s not what he  _wants_. He’s always been good at the former in a practical sort of way; getting by on what he needs and dreaming about what he wants. Only it’s never felt so incredibly wrong, so much like fitting the wrong edges against a different shape, as it does now. Kurt slides off the bed as well, finds Blaine with a washcloth and running warm water slipping down the bowl of the sink. Kurt searches out a washcloth of his own.

Surreptitiously, he watches Blaine; the motions of his hands almost clinical when he cleans between his thighs. The high flush on his cheeks and his dark full eyelashes. The damp glitter of left behind tears on his face.   It feels like crackling in his chest, that evidence of movement.

Ignoring what he needs may be easier for Kurt, but it hurts more to think that he might do that to Blaine. He never meant to before, it was never his intention when he left for New York. But if he were to do that now, to ignore how obviously Blaine needs something from him just to spare himself hurt -- that would be acting with intention and he could never, never do that to Blaine.

“Here,” He pulls Blaine into him, arms curled around his shoulders to cradle the back of his head. The plop of a heavy wet cloth sounds when Blaine drops it, arms winding so tight around his middle it hurts. “Come to bed.”

~*~

“No.” Blaine stills the motion of Kurt’s body when he turns in bed to hold him. “Can I?”

“Oh!" Kurt hesitates; something seizes in Blaine’s throat, a pregnant pause where his hope for asking might be lost or ignored. “Of course.”

Blaine hears the surprise and curiosity there. But it seems that this isn’t the moment for talking, not with everything being left unsaid that they both don’t want to hear.

Kurt is wide shouldered in front of him. “I think you grew more,” Blaine smiles against the nape of Kurt’s neck, his arm almost strained to wrap around him. “How is that even fair?”

“I’ve been eating my Wheaties.” Kurt laughs, gently. “But please,” His fingers stroke over Blaine’s arm, “Don’t eat yours. You’re perfect just like this.”

Blaine knows Kurt means his body, hopes he doesn’t mean his self. Because there is so much more growing he hopes to do, now.

“You’ll always be perfect like this too.” Fervent promises, he thinks, disguise the underpinning of his words. Blaine lets his hands have what he’s been wanting then, the way Kurt wouldn’t let before. Lets them slide over the sturdy arched ribs and crook under Kurt’s arm to run along his bicep. The elfin point of his ear and the constellation of freckles over his shoulders. He touches and touches and breathes him perfectly in, this naked bare smelling man that’s so much everything to him, until he feels Kurt drop, lax into sleep.

Still, he breathes and touches and memorizes everything he thought he already had. Blaine knows now that there will never be a time when he’ll have committed Kurt so indelibly to memory that he won’t need to learn the shapes of his body again and again. This time he has now is fleeting he knows, unless he finds a way to fight for it. He listens to the way their breath weaves together into the darkness and reads carefully the braille story under his palms.

~*~

It’s still dark when Kurt opens his eyes. They’d neglected to close the blinds, blind to anything but each other. From where Kurt lays, he can see the night sky. Still black but pitching toward dawn in an indescribable way. It’s a time he’s never had a name for, a time where just the slightest quality of the dark has started to shift.

Behind him, Blaine breathes quietly. He’s rolled over in his sleep but his back is still lined up against Kurt’s, spine pressed against his. It’s almost too warm, their bodies together under the heavy drape of the comforter. It’s not some cheap blanket either, but a real one, down and fluff.

He feels the shift, Blaine’s body like the sunrise beginning; subtle and hushed. The sky is still dark and Blaine’s muscles are warming and stretching. He rolls over.

“Morning.” It’s sleepy intimate, the way he buries his face into Kurt’s back. Then he pulls away, leaving a longing shiver that runs through Kurt’s body. He’s remembered now too.

“Not quite,” Kurt offers softly, “Just before four.”

“Oh.” There’s something almost strange about Blaine’s tone. “Since it’s not morning?”

The warmth of Blaine’s body creeps closer; Kurt closes his eyes and sighs into the wet press of Blaine’s open kiss, the damp trail he leaves down the knobs of spine. “Blaine-” He’s already arching, pressing his ass back; Blaine rolles down, bites lightly over the round swell and then to his thigh. Kurt gasps, uncovered from his pocket of safe warmth with Blaine’s shifting body.

“It’s not morning yet.” Blaine supplicates. Rests his cheek against the small of his back and runs his palm smooth up his side.  Kurt’s skin feels gold dust lit, luminous and treasured.

“Okay.” He acquiesces, rolling over. He lays his hands gently on Blaine’s head, tipping his face up. It’s too dark to really see his eyes, but they still connect in a way that didn’t feel safe in the bright lights and overwhelming need before.

“Come up here,” He tugs a little, fingers carding through loosened curls. He’s always so loved Blaine sleep rumpled in the morning, self-conscious about his wayward hair. He’s tousled and sexy, loose and warm. “You wanted to be close. Before.”

“We were.” The bed shifts when Blaine crawls up so they are facing each other carefully. Kurt winds his thigh between Blaine’s and presses his open palm against Blaine’s back.

“But not like you needed.” They kiss with caution, navigating this moment that’s given at the cusp of a new day, harbinger of heartache they know will come.

Blaine rolls, an experiment in intimacy Kurt had shied away from before. His eyes are open and steady on Kurt’s. And he’s scared, Kurt is so scared to do this, to bare himself utterly. To open to this fragile vulnerability.

But he doesn’t want to hold it back right now. Can’t because this might be the last time and he can’t leave this chance behind. He cups his fingers over Blaine’s cheek and moves closer until everything touches, until he’s not sure where he starts anymore. He nips into the kiss, exhales desire into Blaine’s mouth. He rocks more urgently.  

“I think we might have exhausted our lotion reserves,” Blaine smiles against Kurt’s forehead.

“That’s fine,” Kurt feels wicked, free with abandon. He licks his own hand thoroughly, then slips it between them to grip Blaine, works him slowly until Blaine is panting with eyes closed.

“Oh god,” Blaine breathes, shifting to pump his hips, fucking gently into Kurt’s grip, “You feel so good.” He’s gripping the back of Kurt’s neck almost too hard. Kurt  _wants_ , wants so that it hurts _._  Wishes he could do this and also touch everywhere, run his hands over every beautiful plane and stretch. Leave Blaine’s skin paper thin and gorgeous. He rubs his foot over Blaine’s calf softly, trains his eyes on Blaine’s face. He’s biting his lip and moaning quietly, eyes fluttering though shut, dark lashes spread in chiaroscuro against his skin.

It feels like he’s dragged this forever, slowing then speeding by reading the subtle shifting of Blaine’s body and breath. His hand feels too tense and on the cusp of cramping, but he doesn’t care. Just wants to draw Blaine through and through until it almost hurts, how good it will feel.

“Please,  _please_  Kurt.”  Blaine is moving in jerky thrusts, tiny rolls desperate into his fist and Kurt gives it, adjusting to wrap just a little harder, moving to capture Blaine’s decadent pleasure-opened lips. He runs his tongue over them, absorbs the luxury of the welcoming warmth when he slowly fucks it in, then lets Blaine groan and tilt into the kiss. Lets Blaine sway him back with his desperation and the profound connection of their mouths.

His hand moves, trails to cup Kurt’s head and in the moment before his orgasm, stills. Kurt runs his thumb with sweet pressure up and around the head, spreads precome and shivering bliss until he feels the hard pulsing and wet warm of Blaine coming and coming and trembling against him. He’s chanting Kurt’s name quietly then louder, moaning it as his orgasm stretches through and through him.

“Oh, oh  _fuck_. “ Blaine lifts a little, drags his hand with pressure and digging nails down Kurt’s spine, kissing him hard back into the bed.

“I never wanted that to end,” Kurt spreads his thighs in open invitation, “I could watch you come forever.”

Blaine laughs a tiny huff of air, “I wouldn’t mind coming forever.” Kurt surrenders to Blaine’s sweet lips, peppering kisses over his face and jaw. His come spreads between them, smearing over Kurt’s stomach and the crease of his thigh. Blaine has always loved that. “But I think I’d trade it easily for you, to make you feel like that.”

Kurt watches, half lidded eyes heavy, moves with needful arches and moans into Blaine’s lips, all over him. He gasps and it’s too loud in the muted room. Gasps again when Blaine’s mouth drags up his aching cock.

“Oh.” He feels something now, something like wonder, when Blaine sinks down. It’s him treasured, the way Blaine worships him. Blaine’s thumbs dig up the apex of his thighs and he spreads them with a moan. “Don’t stop.”

Blaine hums, tiny vibrations that quiver over his so hard dick and into his pelvis where everything is already tight and warm and he’s so close.

“I’m, Blaine I can’t-” He works his hips in tight corkscrews, eyes closed against the pleasure. He feels bright and shimmering, damp with light sweat. Blaine works him harder, bringing a fist up to pump at the base, wet with spit.

He cramps and curls when he comes, Blaine sucking and slowly bringing him through while he cries out and moans and breathes _I love you’s_  through the terrible pleasure. He works his hand and fingers through Blaine’s curls, absent of the gentle consideration before. Pulling and keeping his mouth on him as long as he can stand.

They fold easily together then, arms and legs and hearts tangled helplessly. They breathe against each other, gasps warm between kisses that sway from desperate to tender yearning and the dawning realization that this special moment, this stolen time, is drawing closed.

But still he lets himself sleep again, to drop against the pull of Blaine’s steady arms. Feels Blaine melt lax against him when they fall into it together, taking what comfort they can into their last hours of almost unbearable intimacy.

~*~

Kurt wakes again and feels... strange. Wrong in some way that he can’t place. It should feel right, shouldn’t it? To be here with Blaine, to be cocooned in everything he has missed so desperately.

But it doesn’t. The memory of last night swarms him, conflicting pleasure with a sort of shame. The shame he remembers clearly. For months he’s tried actively to forget the way he’d used Blaine the night of his confession. The hurting way he’d connected them that night, the agonizing pleasure wrought from a last moment.

Kurt never wanted to feel that way again. He has always actively avoided bringing shame into sex because for him, sex is about love. About trust and being connected.

Somehow, though, he does feel shame about last night. It had been about connection, yes. But it came at a price, rushing before they’d talked. Before he could decide if this was the path he really wanted to take. If he was ready. And now...now he’s dragged Blaine into this, maybe given him hope when he’s not sure he has any right to give it.

For everything that wants to make it work, Kurt has to be realistic about if they can right now. If Blaine is strong enough to wait, if he’s capable of giving Blaine what he needs through the phone and skype and words. He’ll never be able to take going through what he did again. Kurt isn’t willing to trade their friendship for a maybe that will surely shatter them forever should Blaine hurt him that way again.

Kurt wants to believe that would never happen. But he’d believed in the first place; god he’s been so stupidly naive to think that knowing they were forever would be enough for Blaine when Blaine was alone. Alone and needing something; him. Love and affirmation. He has known from the start that Blaine needs those things. It’s a lot of pressure, to know and feel like he is the only one who can give it properly.

Blaine stirs. The sky is waning pink. Kurt doesn’t dare turn around because he’s sure he isn’t ready for what he has to do. Even though it hurts and he can’t take it, he wishes Blaine had stayed asleep just a little longer. Had listened to the muscle memory and intimacy of sleeping with someone you love.

“Kurt.” Blaine’s hand is warm where it rests, slight tentative on his shoulder. Kurt closes his eyes, feels his body tighten. Only Blaine’s ever managed to say his name like that, the way he leans on the T, closing his name start to finish because it’s precious to him.

“Will you-” his voice breaks. “Will you hold me just a bit longer?” Blaine’s arm comes around him; Kurt lifts his head until it can rest on his crooked elbow, folded under him. Blaine breathes against his scalp. “Just until the sun rises.”

“All right.” Blaine speaks softly, pain resonant in his voice. His kiss is firm though, lips sure against the back of Kurt’s head. He burrows back and deeper into Blaine’s hold. The sky is almost orange and light now and he wishes them back to the dark before this dawn, for just a few minutes longer to pretend the ease they once had. A tear runs from the corner of his eye, rolls off of his cheek and onto Blaine’s elbow.

Out the window, the sun has edged too close, bright enough to burn into his eyes so that he has to close them. He takes a deep breath and steels himself with a breath that hurts from his toes to his turning stomach and through his too-tight chest.

Kurt moves out of Blaine’s arms.

~*~

“I don’t want to hear this, do I?” Blaine ventures. Despite his recent shower, his body is a confused mass of temperature variations; warm in his core where the water has heated him, but nervous skin chilled with anticipation.

“Do either of us want to say this?” Kurt sits next to him on the rumpled bed, eyes trained on his fidgeting hands.

Blaine looks around the room, considers what he has to say carefully. Tries not to feel resentment because it won’t be helpful.

“I’m not saying it Kurt.” He speaks softly, tries to be gentle, “I’m going to fight for this.”

“Blaine-” He closes his eyes when Kurt’s voice wavers, “I can’t- I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.” Blaine shifts so his shoulder brushes Kurt’s, “Have either of us ever wanted to hurt the other?”

Silence settles around them, heavy blanketing.

“I don’t see how this can work any other way, Blaine. Not right now.” Blaine’s looking down now too, sees Kurt’s hand flit away and come back to rest, damp with tears. “I’ll still be in New York. I don’t know how-” He stutters out a breath, then inhales and Blaine braces a little. “We always said we’d be honest."

“But we weren’t, were we?” Blaine closes his eyes when he speaks “If we were honest this might not have happened.”

“Maybe.” Kurt seems to consider the words. “Was it honesty we didn’t have though?”

“Sometimes.” It should be simple, to say these words. Everything inside has seized up though, terrified to rock a boat until it capsizes. To push Kurt away or upset him.

 _You don’t have to please everyone,_ Sarah’s voice reminds him.

“That’s something...” Kurt swallows, “I’ll have to think about that one.”

“Okay.” Blaine glances over but Kurt is still looking down, eyebrows drawn. “I don’t care what it takes, Kurt. I’ll wait. We’ll talk. I can-” He steels himself, “I can work to be more honest, and to tell you how I’m really feeling. To figure out how to communicate better and-”  

“Blaine,” Kurt interrupts, “I can’t give you false hope here.”

“You aren’t.” Blaine tries to smile but it fails with the tremble of his chin, with the tightness of holding in tears. “I know what you’re saying.”

 “I can’t lose your friendship.” Kurt’s hand is cold on his. “I can’t risk that Blaine. And if...”

“If?” Blaine prompts.

“I’m sorry-”

“You’re going to be honest right now aren’t you?” He tries to joke.

Kurt meets his eye, “If you hurt me like that again Blaine, I could never do it again. Everything would be broken. I would be. I can’t do that again.”

“Kurt,” He cups Kurt’s face urgently, thumbs the tears away. Kurt’s always been so pretty with tears. Otherworldly. “Kurt I won’t, I won’t ever do that again.”

“Oh,” Kurt curls his hands around Blaine’s wrists, lets Blaine kiss a tear away., “I know you don’t want to, Blaine. But I can’t-” He bites in a sob when Blaine kisses him again.

“You can’t trust me.” Blaine whispers it against Kurt’s hair. It’s drying in wisps, thick clumped and mussed. He tries to hold himself together, to smile through the cracks and fissures but can’t.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Blaine.”  Kurt’s forehead hurts where it digs against his collarbone and his body vibrates with the shared brunt of his sobs. Blaine doesn’t cry; tries to call on a reserve of strength he never had -- not like Kurt always did.

“It’s okay Kurt,” his voice is so small, his heart like knives when it beats, hard and fast, “I deserve it.”

“Don’t,” Kurt pulls back to look at him, eyes fierce bright through the tears, “Don’t say that. I don’t want to punish you. I don’t want you to punish yourself. It’s not about deserving Blaine. You  _deserve_  more than I can give you right now. I deserve it.”  

Blaine looks at him. Just looks. Tries to burn Kurt indelibly in his heart right now.

“Don’t ask me to give up.”

“I won’t. But I won’t ask you to keep fighting either. I won’t ask you to hurt yourself for something that I can’t promise to give.”

Blaine clears his throat, turns to nuzzle into where Kurt’s nose ghosts over his cheek. Thinks of all the things they haven’t told each other -- he knows there must be things Kurt hasn’t shared -- and wonders when it will be the right time to talk about them.

“It’s not hurting Kurt. It’s hoping. You’re it.” He pulls away, “You’re my forever. And I’m sorry-” He pushes past the throat breaking agony, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust it enough before, but I do now.”

“Blaine-”  Kurt’s voice is sympathy, the start of gentle let down.

“No. I won’t give up. I won’t be mad, not about Adam or anything else. I know you need to go your way Kurt. But I’m going to be here, waiting and fighting and that’s okay. We’re both okay.”

Kurt sighs, blinks through thick tears,

“I love you Blaine. I do.”

Blaine keeps his next kiss simple, a fleeting touch, before he pulls away and stands. The last thing Blaine wants is for Kurt to remember leaving him here like this. This he can give, the gentle mercy of walking away himself, sparing Kurt the small indignities of a more cracked heart.

He believes now, he knows. And he won’t make Kurt say goodbye, won’t ask him to break a promise that was the foundation of so much more.

Blaine dresses quietly, brushes tears away with the back of his hand and works so hard not to go to Kurt, not to break down and beg because Kurt is crying quietly into his cupped hands, shoulders shaking.  He gathers his suit jacket, wrinkled from a night on the floor and comes to stand before Kurt for a moment. Ghosts a small kiss to the top of his head with a whispered,

“I love you too, my prince.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there is a happy ending in the next story. You'll never convince me that these boys aren't endgame. I live a Klaine endgame life.

**Author's Note:**

> Much gratitude to Cimms for being my beta. Also to Axe (Canarian) and Riah (Lurkdusoleil) for betain'g the first section and encouraging me to spin one random drabble into this sequel. 
> 
> To punkkitten, gingerandfair, stutter for hand holding, reading, encouraging, listening to my rants. So many people to thank, and I am so grateful.


End file.
